New York robot maker will produce up to 100 ventilators per day as coronavirus spreads

[yourmovemonkey]

Source: Albany Business Review

Precision Valve & Automation in Colonie is ready to make up to 100 emergency ventilators a day to assist patients suffering from the coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases in New York swells to more than 25,000.

Chief executive Tony Hynes, whose company has spent 28 years building robots used to manufacture automobile dashboard screens, artificial hips and military weapons, is racing to resolve a shortage of 30,000 ventilators in New York state.

"When we heard the governor ask businesses to be creative and help, we took that as our marching orders," Hynes said. "We can build anything and make it work."

Late last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked companies for assistance making gowns, gloves, masks, beds and ventilators. Then, Cuomo pleaded with the federal government Tuesday asking for 20,000 ventilators in the next 14 days. They are desperately needed, he said, to help patients as the number of cases in New York continues to double every three days.

"If we don't have ventilators in 14 days, it does us no good," Cuomo said.

Read more: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2020/03/24/pva-ready-to-produce-ventilators-for-new-york.html?fbclid=IwAR3PCys3PRuRsJsBsfswFBaQ22sSiAAfruWAAPz1GYGMjR3JEHQ9D4B_kHA

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This is where I work. I knew the engineers were trying to do something, but I didn't know they had succeeded in a prototype. Normally, we make industrial robots. I'm a CNC programmer/machinist there.

[scarletwoman]

1. Bravo! (nt)

[AZ8theist]

23. WHAT SHE SAID!!!!!!

Awesome!!

[babylonsister]

2. Great news, thanks for sharing! nt

[mitch96]

3. This company in Whales is building these for the UK market.

It took them three days to knock it together...

https://tinyurl.com/wdjv3j9

m

[yourmovemonkey]

6. I'm guessing this is similar, or the same design

It mentions in the article that this one is based on specifications from the UK.

[mitch96]

8. It's hard to tell. It's in a box and you don't know what is inside

Like most vents it has to pressurize the air in a rhythmical way and pass it on to the patients lungs.

m

[yourmovemonkey]

9. TBH, I only heard about this after I got home today

A coworker shared the linked story on FB, and I shared it here. I haven't seen the prototype yet, but I did know they were trying to do something. I even mentioned it to one of the supervisors on Friday. I thought even then that it was something we could probably do. At least I though we could provide replacement parts for other companies' designs, if the demand was overwhelming.

[mwooldri]

26. Looks a bit like a DIY CPAP machine.

It may be a Daily Fail article but still - a 'level 1" ventilator is better than no ventilator at all. The real serious cases can use the properly designed ventilator and the DIY one will help for those not so severe.

[morillon]

4. These are the kinds of companies I'd like to work for

Places that think fast and pitch in when there's a crisis. I'm glad for you that you work there.

[yourmovemonkey]

10. I do really love this place

It's a great company in many ways.

[Leghorn21]

5. Thanks, monkey!! So are YOU fixing to put in some 80-hour weeks here shortly or is this

way outside of your job description??

It’s so good to read a post like this that gives one some HOPE, thank you!!

[yourmovemonkey]

7. I would probably assist in making some of the mechanical parts.

I would do long work weeks for this, but we need to keep ourselves healthy too.

[Leghorn21]

12. Yes, please do stay healthy, monkey!!

Hell yeah!!

[joost5]

11. Glad some companies are stepping up to serve but...

shouldn't the federal govt gotten ahead of it by nationalizing critical medicine/PPE factories?

(rhetorical question)

[DENVERPOPS]

18. The Federal Gov't

is far more interested in spending hundreds of Billions on the F-35, that after years and years and years they still can't get to perform than spending an infinitely smaller amount of money for a relatively few thousand inhalators that would actually save human lives....

People, People, People you have to get your priorities straight.......

[Igel]

31. Why compel what's done voluntarily?

Just to show who's boss?

To be able to say, "I did this!"?

Take away the ability of others to say, "Yes, we did this on our own"?

Or out of the deep suspicion that others unlike ourselves really aren't all that trustworthy because, well, they're not like us?

Nobody's claimed anybody's blocking production.

In fact, the closest we have is a company expressing surprise--they could have been ramping up production, but there weren't orders. In other words, for all the cries of the sky is falling, the criers were to busy chicken-littling to actually pick up the phone and place an order.

[iluvtennis]

13. Wonderful news! The company you work at is doing an awesome thing. nt

[bucolic_frolic]

14. A ray of hope and hopefully

they are in addition to the numbers Gov Cuomo announced this day.

See, NOW would be the time for the President to step up, and find additional manufacturing capacity in other factories and order them all to share the design and step to it. Cuomo said several times, he wishes he had the power to do it. Trump has the power! It's just against his rigid, ideological belief to do so and he is loathe to help a Democratic state, Trump clearly keeps shifting responsibility to Cuomo and will at some point attempt to blame Cuomo for the large amount of fatalities.

This is ALL on Trump now! ALL OF IT!

[Wounded Bear]

15. If they make hip replacements, they can handle the medical requirements...

pretty heavy regs on all medical equipment, but they should be able to handle the sanitation requirements, at least.

Also, military equipment has some stringent reliability specs, so they should be good there.

Kudos for them stepping up.

[James48]

30. All regs waived.

In Italy, today, they are using trash bags for PPE. They have nothing else.

In 10 days, we are Italy.

[HarlanPepper]

37. Bookmarking

[seta1950]

16. Thank you

🙏

[OneCrazyDiamond]

17. Is there any Gov approval required,

Or is all that on hold?

I would hate for my loved one to pass from faulty devices.

[mitch96]

19. Ford got into the act also... using a F150 seat blower and filters... neat!

https://jalopnik.com/fords-quickly-designed-powered-air-purifying-respirator-1842476673
m

[Warpy]

20. Will it also produce doctors and RTs to intubate the patients?

How about the nursing staff and respiratory therapists who will monitor the ventilator patients and wean them off when it's time?

My guess is no. The problem is not only the equipment, it's the trained staff necessary to take care of the patients who are on it.

They're not renovating facilities to house the patients on the ventilators, either.

I find myself getting very fatalistic these days, I've had my 3 score and 10, so either I'll get it or I won't amd if I get it, either I'll recover or I won't. I'm cutting the possibility down through meticulous hygiene, I'm fatalistic but not stupid.

In the meantime, we introverts ill inherit the earth. Stuck at home alone? Pure heaven. Once this passes, we introverted survivors will be out there with fully charged batteries, ready to pick up the pieces.

[Igel]

32. There are some ways around this.

But it's a problem with no great solutions.

A partial solution was surveying medical staff past and present (in NY, I think it was) for those with experience with respiratory illness.

Some machine-specific training is possible. Apparently each machine is different and in one trial where they tried to quickly cross train various groups of medical professionals, the group that killed the fewest mock patients and learned to use the equipment the quickest and best, by a wide margin, were veterinarians. (They had no training on anything similar. Doctors and nurses tended to assume that the machine in front of them was like some other equipment they'd used so they already knew what to do.)

It's part of a political talking point, as so much of the crap in the media when we need cooperation and simple information has been. Cry out about the utter shortage of ventilators (that's predicted) to be the great savior, but let the back-of-house problem that has to be dealt with locally just sort of get ignored. When faced with a problem, Squirrel!!!

[NBachers]

21. Good old American know-how! I'm glad your company has stepped up where *others* have failed.

[tazkcmo]

22. Then get to work!!!

Seriously though, you all are heroes as are our medical workers. Americans owe a huge debt to you all.

[pangaia]

24. Can you guys build a robot that will make a president, who looks like trump..?

then.... ya know... switcheroo....

[Just_Vote_Dem]

28. Put in a brain modeled after Obama

and watch the Repubs lose their shit

[mgardener]

25. Thank you

And thank your co workers.
Very much appreciated.

[warmfeet]

27. We can do it.

Get the orange asshole out of the way, we can do the rest.

[James48]

29. 100 production capability a day, 20000 needed

Just for New York.

The entire nation is going to need hundreds of thousands- and it will need them starting in 15 days.

God help is all.

I think I will go in the basement and start building wooden coffins. We are going to need a lot of those as well.

[Igel]

34. I don't know.

I've seen estimates that up to half of those hospitalized need ventilators.

And (https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-model-shows-hospitals-what-to-expect/) estimates as low as 1%.

That's the thing about the numbers--every single one of them needs to have +/- error after them, and none do.

"The model predicts 2 million dead!" Yeah, 2 million - 1.5 million / +0 million because the actual estimate was "500,000 to 2 million" and only the high end gets reported.

But if it is 1%, then 25000 ventilators means 2.5 million sick and 125,000 hospitalized.

If it's half of those hospitalized, it means they're assuming 50,000 hospitalized and 330,000 sick. Those are very different sorts of numbers, with nobody actually pointing out what they are, or mentioning the error bars.

[MissMillie]

33. That's what I call... heroic

I don't live near New York, but nonetheless I am thankful to Precision Valve & Automation

[hamsterjill]

35. Thank you so much for the only piece of good news I've seen today.

Thanks from Texas. As companies step up and learn and polish procedures, etc., it will benefit everyone.

Sincerely - best of luck and thank you.

[Faux pas]

36. Kicketty Kickin'

P